CHAR-
SALISH KOOTENAI AND PEND'd ORIELLES TRIBES
CHARLO
KOOSTAHTAH
KOOSTA
SMIMII (Salish: News)
Volume 3 - Number 3 New Moon of the Camas (June 1,1973) Price -15 Cents lts
Council Fails to Show in Elmo, Kootenais Plan Split
Elmo (May 12): A special Tribal Council meeting called to discuss Kootenai demands for restructureing the tribal government failed to materialize Saturday at Koostahtah Hall. Kootenai leaders now say reform of the confederation is not possible and they will go to Congress for their own Reservation.
The special meeting between the Council and the northern reservation Kootenai Community was slated during the April 5 Quarterly Meeting of the Council after Councilman Pat Lefthand, Elmo, presented a preliminary st of Kootenai demands. The Council had expressed a desire to work out the differences between the southern-reservation bes and the Kootenai but the meeting in Elmo was attendee by only four councilmen.
Present at the meeting were Councilmen Pat Lefthand, Elmo; Vic Stinger, Pablo; Tom Pablo, Hot Springs and Tom "Bearhead" Swaney, St. Ignatius. Absent were: Council Chairman Harold Mitchell, Jr., St. Ignatius; Vice Chairman
Robert McCrea, Dixon; Councilmen John Malatare and Fred Whitworth, Arlee; James Ely, Ronan, and E,W. Mori-geau, Poison. The meeting was cancelled because of a lack of a quorum which requires seven members.
KOOTENAI COALITION PRESENTATION
Officers of the newly formed Kootenai Coalition salvaged the meeting by presenting a revised and expanded list of demands to the four councilmen present and some 50 predominantly Kootenai Indians who came to attend the session. Presenting the plan were: Coalition Chairman Joe Mathias, Hot Springs; Vice-Chairman Margaret Friedlander, Ronan; Secretary, Nancy Joseph, Elmo; and Treasurer Madeline Couture, Elmo. The Kootenai Coalition is an outgrowth of the Kootenai Drum and Feathers Club, a primarily Kootenai Cultural group which had developed the initial list of demands. The coalition was organized in April to develop and implement the demands.
Forestry
Practices
Questioned
Dixon: (May 19) The Tribal Council is taking a long hard look at some Bureau of Indian Affairs forestry practices on the reservation.
Acting Forestry Supervisor Fred Malroy appeared before the Council last Saturday to get a go-ahead on three Mission Mountains sales projected for next year and 19 7 5. He got a tentative o.k. to do the ground
work on the three sales......a
15 million board feet sale at Mud Creek east of Pablo, a 15 million board feet cut at Ashley Creek around McDonald Lake and two or more sales in the St. Mary's Lake unit totalling some 80 million board feet — but he also got some sharp criticism on
forest thinning projects and contract overruns.
Councilman Fred Whitworth, Arlee, told Malroy that Winning
(cont. on page 3)
BIA Outlines Absentee Voting
Dixon: (May 19) The Department of the Interior said last month that 18 year old Indians could vote in tribal elections ... now they have opened the ballot boxes to off reservation voters too.
Earlier this year, the tribe decided to request the Secretary of the Interior to call for a constitutional amendment referendum to permit 18 year olds to vote in tribal elections. There was at that time question whether or not off-reservation tribal members would be entitled to vote in a secretarial called election — those elections called by the Secretary of the Interior to amend tribal constitutions, such as permitting 18 year olds to vote—and the Council asked the Secretary for an opinion.
In a letter read during last Saturday's Council Meeting, Assistant to the Secretary, Theodore W. Taylor said yes,
off reservation members would be allowed to vote in the 18 year old election and all secretarial elections.
Taylor said the change in the procedure .... in the past all elections for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have been restricted to on-res-ervation Indians .... was due to an interpretation of the Tribal Constitution and the Code of Federal Regulations. The letter explained that when this tribe was organized under the Indian Reorganization Act, it was considered a "tribe" rather than "residents of a reservation."
The letter goes on to explain the act also provides: "Amendments to the constitution and by-laws may be ratified and approved by the Secetary in the same manner as the original constitution ?.nd by-laws", and goes on to explain that since absentee votes were accept-(cont. on page 3)
( more on page 8)
90% Payout Vote Set June 30
Dixon (May 19): Qualified tribal member voters will go to the polls June 30 to decide whether or not the tribe should distribute 90 percent of reservation resource revenues.
The election date was set last Saturday at a regular meeting of the Tribal Council. The Council had accepted the petition calling for the election April 28 but had not set a date for the election at that time.
The petition called for a tribal referendum election on a proposal to operate the tribal administration on ten percent of the reservation's annual revenues and per-capita out the remaining 90 percent. The proposal was first offered to the Council in early Feb-(cont. on page 3)